Johnson helped uncover truth at Tomah VA

I want to lay out an explanation of my full support of Sen. Ron Johnson and why he has my vote this November. More importantly, I want to encourage those of you who are undecided as well as those citizens who are not planning to vote why I have decided to vote for Ron Johnson.

Those who are partisan in their views have made up their minds already. I used to be one of those folks having voted most of my adult life on a straight party ticket for democrats such as John Kerry and every other democrat, including President Obama twice. In 2016 I would have done the same. In this senate race I would have voted for Russ Feingold by default.

My experience as a Veterans Affairs whistleblower changed that for me. I've seen the character of those politicians in their reactions to the death of veterans, such as the now well-known death of U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Stevens Point native Jason Simcakoski, as well as the suicide of an employee, Dr. Chris Kirkpatrick, who tried to blow the whistle on what was happening at the Tomah VA Medical Center in 2009, well before the majority of deaths began occurring.

Just as the union fired off memos as early as 2008 to politicians including Russ Feingold, I fired off emails and complaints to my representatives in 2014 and eventually the media resulting in the Center for Investigative Reporting exposing the tragic deaths of veterans in its January 2015 article.

It is then, once the facts surrounding the death of Jason Simcakoski and later through Ron Johnson's Senate committee investigation numerous other deaths were finally known to the public, that Ron Johnson did what no other politician did. He acted to fix the problems at the Tomah VA. And there is definitive proof that he did.

For those voters who want to see the proof of acting instead of talking like most politicians do, I highly encourage voters to read his committee's report after an 18-month investigation that Ron Johnson launched immediately once the facts became known. It's 350 pages with 5,000 pages of supporting documents. What families and whistleblowers always wanted was the truth. And those are 5,350 pages of truth that we all now wish would have been independently investigated as early as 2008 before veterans and an employee had to die. And the full truth would never have been known without the actions of Ron Johnson.

I've learned many things about the character of politicians since I blew the whistle two years ago. Most are talkers and reactionary. I've interacted with politicians all the way up to meeting with President Obama, who said he couldn't even nominate a new inspector general (he later did under political pressure including from Ron Johnson). Ron is someone who does the harder right instead of the easier wrong, something I learned as a cadet at West Point. And in politics where talk is cheap, character like that is sadly rare indeed. Ron is a doer with character and that's why he has my vote and I encourage you to get out and vote for him too.

Ryan Honl of Tomah, a Gulf War veteran and graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, is a former employee of the Tomah VA Medical Center who blew the whistle on drug-prescribing practices at the clinic in 2014.